Tuesday, June 28, 2011

As my readers know, I go to great lengths to avoid other neurologists. I do this because this branch of medicine is just chock full of personality disorders.

Don't believe me? Allow me to introduce exhibit A, which was published in the January/February 2011 issue of Practical Neurology.

click to enlarge

Because, let's face it: It takes a really special kind of whackjob to write a letter complaining about using both the words "preventive" AND "preventative" in the same article. They even get bonus points for being able to cite an article from freakin' 1964 on such an important point.

The first time I read that, I couldn't see any difference between "preventive" and "preventative" and assumed that the editors made a mistake in their clarification note. That would have been really something special.

Actually, that's something that drives me CRAZY. I could see myself weiting something like that, if I was close to retirement and had some time on my hands...and hey, what about "12 items or less"? It SHOULD be "12 items or fewer". WHAT ABOUT THAT?

I work in the Department of Preventive Medicine and I can't tell you the number of times that we receive things addressed to "Department of Preventative Medicine" - even from our school's dean's office.

I think I know what you mean. I chose medical transcription as a second career after my last child starts school this September and I have to say that I've never seen such a heated debate as that concerning spacing after a colon (one or two). And my first degree was in philosophy -- you know, where people kind of argue now and then :)

I feel oh so left out. Where can I, a lowly commoner, get a medical journal to read? These esteemed gatherers of info should share with the little people like me because at 3am when I'm feeding my tiny babe, I need something to lull us both back to sleep!

The person that wrote that may have had a migraine at the time. I know I get pretty "anal" when I have one. Never mind that I can't remember which way to turn when driving from my house to the grocery store 2 blocks away, but I sure can find those writing errors.

As a vet student in clinics, I had to sit through radiology rounds where two clinicians argued for 30 minutes about whether it should be called "gastric dilation" or "gastric dilatation." I tried not to think about how much per hour my education cost...

So, annie.dvm, you haven't yet had to sit through the euthanased/euthanized/euthanatized debate? Lucky you. You have that to look forward to! Then there are the ones who, knowing no Latin, think the singular of "sequelae" is "sequele" and the singular of "septae" is "septa". *Shudder*.

@Melissa: The British medical journal has a lot of open access articles.

There's also something like that in Dutch - voorkómen (to prevent) and 'vóórkomen' (incidence). These words are usually written as 'voorkomen' but only in medicine they decide to use these accents - at first, I never understood why, and now I'm so indoctrinated that I'm actually confused when there are no accents.

Welcome to my whining!

This blog is entirely for entertainment purposes. All posts about patients may be fictional, or be my experience, or were submitted by a reader, or any combination of the above. Factual statements may or may not be accurate.

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